The Best of the TBD Journal in 2019

It is hard to believe, but as the clock ticks down on 2019, in the next few days we will be publishing our 200th Journal entry of the year. I don’t know how many collective hours we have poured into the Journal this year, or how many beautiful photographs we have been fortunate to be able to share, but it has certainly been an exciting and hopefully informative year for the website as we have tackled everything from in-depth data analysis of the sport, to our usual mix of race reports and training recaps, to a number of adventures abroad.

We’re beyond excited for everything that we have planned for 2020, including a full season with our teammates at To Be Determined f/b Metropolitan Dental Care. But before we turn our eye to 2020, we wanted to look back at some of the most popular Journal entries that we published this year. If you missed some of these along the way, we think they’re still worth clicking back to. In top 10 format, counting down from the 10th most popular to the 1st, here goes:

10: In defense of the Fred

If we’re honest, we were a bit surprised to see this one pop up on our top ten posts of the year given it didn’t feature a huge and beautiful photo gallery and it didn’t directly touch on a major cycling event. But in what was originally planned to be the first part of a new series, Cullen’s April essay touched on the exclusion and criticism that is sometimes shoveled at new riders and in the process became our tenth most popular post of the year: In Defense Of: The Fred

9: Sitting down with David Trimble from Red Hook Crit

There are very few race directors in the country today that have had as significant of an impact on the sport as David Trimble. Yes, Red Hook Crit is on hiatus, but the social media centric approach to cycling events lives on both within traditional USAC racing at Radsport and in the explosive growth underlying the gravel scene. Our interview with Dave sparked some controversy as some folks perceived his commentary on Grant’s Tomb as excessively critical, but we still gained plenty of insight from our time with Dave. This is not one to be missed: The Inside Track: A Conversation with Red Hook Crit’s David Trimble

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8: Going behind the scenes at New York City’s biggest criterium

Grant’s Tomb Criterium is one of those really special only in New York City style of events. And we don’t always mean in a good way - there is layer after layer of permitting and community coordination required to make the race possible, and even once the permits and plans are in place, CRCA has to have folks on site throughout the night overseeing towing to insure that we actually have a race course in the morning. But when all of those pieces come together, Grant’s Tomb Criterium is one of our absolute favorite events on the calendar and this year we offered up a behind the scenes look at the event on the Journal: Grant's Tomb Criterium 2019: The Behind the Scenes Perspective

7: Balancing budgets at New York City’s biggest road race

At times our Race Director Diaries Series probably consumed more time than was justified - compiling multiple years of registration data, analyzing registration by field, and then packaging it up in a journal entry was not a quick process. But we think and hope the end result was an insightful look into the art and science of organizing a USAC categorized race in 2019. From this Series, the post that struck the strongest nerve was our look at the budget underlying one of the few remaining road races in New York City. Spoiler alert, the numbers continue to get more difficult with each passing year: Trying to balance the books at the Bear Mountain Classic

6: Evolving as a racer and finding the perfect bike

New for 2019, several of our riders spent the year on the Moots Vamoots RSL, in both disc and non-disc format. Late in the season, after several months on his Vamoots, Tom wrote what would easily become one of our favorite posts of the entire year, touching on his evolution as a rider and racer. As it turns out it would also become on of the most clicked Journal entries of the year. Another ‘don’t miss’ post: Bikes are fun. Ride a fun bike. Tom’s Moots Vamoots RSL

5: In-depth analysis of key trends for gravel and road racing

For 2019 we kicked off the State of the Sport Series with a bang: a deep dive into Rasputitsa registration data that took a shocking number of hours to compile. All of the numbers seemingly pointed to one conclusion: Road Is Losing. Gravel Is Winning. Here Are the Numbers.

4: The Definitive guide to CX tires

We’re not sure how many hours Clay spent tracing tire tread patterns to put together his impressive guide to CX tires. We just know that it was not only the most popular post from 2019 in our series of TBD Guides, it was also one of the most popular posts on the website all year: The Best Cyclocross Tires: A TBD Guide

3: Enduring hellish weather at Rasputitsa 2019

From the aforementioned State of the Sport Series to any number of race reports from our annual trip North to Vermont, Rasputitsa is a regular topic on the TBD Journal. But the 2019 edition of the event was something else entirely as brutal weather made for one hell of a story to tell: The Worst Weather Brings the Best Out at Rasputitsa

2: Looking at the latest USAC numbers

The most recent entry in our State of the Sport Series was our annual look at USAC racing by the numbers. Unfortunately the numbers were anything but good as the sport has continued its multi-year contraction. There is a new administration at USAC and we’re hopeful that they’ll be able to right the ship, but at least as far as 2019 was concerned, the charts were not pretty: State of the Sport: USAC Racing in 2019 by the Numbers

1: Equality in cycling by Ginger Boyd

It was an exciting year on the Journal. We’re going to end up publishing more than two hundred entries. Many of those have focused on training and racing, but interviews and essays also made up a huge part of the Journal this year. And in that vein the most popular journal entry of the year, and perhaps my personal favorite entry that we have ever published, was this powerful piece from Ginger Boyd on equality in cycling in 2019. If you are going to read any post from this top ten list, this should be it: Ginger Boyd: Racing For All Women